1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information recording medium such as an optical disk of a high recording density type, which is capable of recording information such as video information, audio information and the like at a high density, and which is represented by a DVD (Digital Video or Versatile Disk). The present invention also relates to a recording apparatus for recording the information onto the information recording medium, and a reproducing apparatus for reproducing the information from the information recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a so-called LD (Laser Disk) and a so-called CD (Compact Disk) are generalized as optical disks, on which information such as video information, audio information and the like is recorded.
On the LD or the like, the video information and the audio information are recorded together with time information indicating a time at which each information is to be reproduced with respect to a reproduction start position, which each LD or the like has, as a standard position. Thus, other than a general normal reproduction to reproduce the recorded information in the order of recording, various special reproductions are possible, such as a reproduction to extract and listen to an only desirable music out of a plurality of recorded musics, a reproduction to listen to the recorded musics in a random order and so on, in case of the CD, for example.
However, there is a problem that, according to the above mentioned LD or the like, a so-called interactive and variegated reproduction is not possible in which the audience can have a plurality of selection branches as for the video or audio information to be displayed or sound-outputted and in which the audience can select them to watch or listen to it.
Namely, it is impossible for a user to choose the language used in the subtitle displayed on the screen (e.g., from subtitle of Japanese and the original language) in the case of watching a foreign movie recorded on a LD or to choose the voices of a song (e.g., fromEnglish voices or Japanese Voices) in the case of listening to the music recorded on a CD.
Nowadays, apart from the above-mentioned conventional CD, it has been proposed and developed a DVD which is an optical disc which disc size is identical to CD and which recording capacity is enhanced to be approximately ten times larger than that of CD. In DVD, there is a problem as to how a special reproduction, such as a search reproduction and/or a jump reproduction, for reproducing a desired position of a user is performed. Particularly, in the case of the recording medium, such as DVD, on which a plurality of information pieces are independently recorded, it is impossible to apply the technique of the special reproduction, i.e., search reproduction and/or jump reproduction, as used in the recording medium, such as a LD, on which information is successively and continuously recorded.